Shoot First Ask Questions Later
by Anonymous-chic
Summary: Shoot first ask questions later.  It sounds like a line from a bad movie.  Normally you try to get all the facts first, but when you manage to overlook something major, suddenly you seem like a character from that bad movie.
1. Letting Go

Shoot first ask questions later, it sounds like a line from a bad movie. Blunt usually tries to get all of the facts first, but one day he manages to overlook something major, and he suddenly seems like a character from that bad movie.

Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider. If I did do you think I would be posting this?

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Alex walked slowly toward the clearing. He could not see it but he knew it was up ahead. Light from the moon poured down through the canopy of trees above. The night did little to lessen the extreme heat and humidity of the forest which he now found himself in. He could feel the dirt beneath his feet; his shoes had long ago been lost to a vicious pool of mud. Dirt coated and exhausted he sat down on a nearby rock to rest.

For almost four hours he had been trudging through this retched place, searching for the place he was to make the drop. He could understand why they had picked such a remote location, but why, oh why did they have to pick the middle of a forest? Looking back on why he was here it didn't seem to matter much. All that mattered was getting her and getting out of here alive.

Looking back along the path he had cut through the thick underbrush he stood up with a sense of dread, thinking about the long journey back.

Stopping only occasionally to shove a branch out of his way, it took only thirty minutes to reach the spot marked with a large red dot on the map he had carried with him. Taking out the brown manila envelope from his black backpack he searched the ground for the rock he had been told to place the disc under. Finally, after ten minutes of searching he found it. It was a large black rock with a small indentation on the bottom.

He set the disc under it with a sense of relief. It was so small yet so heavy to carry. The trouble he had gone to in order to lay hands on it had been outrageous! Besides shooting three people (non-fatally) he had been forced to betray so many people, all for one person.

As he turned his back to the rock and began to set off down the path he had cut, bright lights flared in his eyes. A helicopter suddenly appeared overhead, armed with machine guns. There was a grey-suited man inside. Alex could feel the air shifted around by the helicopter's rotating blades. His first instinct was to run but he seemed to be rooted to the spot by some invisible force.

A bullhorn sounded; "Put your hands up in the air!" he knew he had heard that cold, emotionless voice somewhere before, but where?

That was it, Alex had been caught, and there was no way around it.

"I said put your hands up, or we will not hesitate to shoot you!" Alex finally was able to pinpoint where he had heard that cold ruthless tone, Alan Blunt.

Hesitantly he raised his hands in the air. There was no way out of this, already two SAS teams had poured into the clearing. Someone was forcing Alex to the ground even as this thought flew through his mind. He could barely turn his head but when he did he wished he hadn't. It was Wolf pinning him the ground.

Alan Blunt climbed out of the helicopter, his normally emotionless face held obvious anger. Walking swiftly over to the black rock he lifted it up and grabbed hold of the envelope. He opened it with so much force it tore right down the center and the disk inside fell to the dirt. Blunt snatched it up and walked toward Alex.

He looked down at Alex's sweat and dirt streaked face with obvious disgust.

"What the hell do you mean by this?"

Alex remained silent, but his gaze lowered to the ground.

"You steal classified information from MI6 and have nothing to say about it!"

Still Alex said nothing.

"Or what about the fact that you were going to give it to terrorists!" his voice grew louder with every syllable until he was shouting.

"I-" his voice faltered. How could he explain to a man completely void of emotions why he had done it?

"You know what; if you're not going to talk we might as well just shoot you now." He turned to Wolf, who was still pinning Alex down, "Kill him."

Wolf gave Blunt a nod to show he understood and with an almost apologetic look on his face he raised his gun to Alex's temple.

"Wait!" Alex burst out, tears now streaming down his face, not just for his life, but for her life as well. "I needed the disk to get Jack back. The terrorists had kidnapped her and said that if I didn't bring them that they would kill her." The tears flowed even faster down his mud soaked cheeks.

"Nice try Alex, but we have it from one of our agents who was sent to watch your house that Jack is fine there." Blunt almost had a smirk on his face when he said this.

"That agent is dead." he said through gritted teeth, Wolf was pressing his gun into Alex's temple with much more force then necessary.

"No he isn't, we received a message from him just hours ago."

"No you didn't!" Alex screamed he was becoming hysterical, "He didn't send it! It wasn't him, you have to believe me! Other wise Jack is going to die!" He fought against Wolf to break free but it was pointless, he was too strong.

"I doubt that Alex." Blunts voice was cold and void of emotion once again. With a curt nod to Wolf he turned and marched back toward the waiting helicopter.

Wolf gave Alex a sad smile, and fired. The bullet pierced Alex's skull, killing him. He was engulfed in the darkness that was death. His last thoughts were of Jack. He wished he could have saved her, she would never know that he had tried; he really had, to save her. Two words managed to escape his lips, "I'm sorry," before the last shreds of life left his body.

Blunt looked back at the dead boy on the ground. Blood poured sickeningly from his temple, and the man that had been pinning him down only moments ago was already preparing to leave the clearing with his SAS unit. Blunt could hear the familiar ring of his cell phone.

"Blunt," he said curtly into the phone.

"Don't kill Alex!" Alan Blunt could detect the urgency in the woman's voice.

"What are you talking about, he is a traitor, and if he had succeeded countless people would have been slaughtered?"

"He did it to save Jack, a terrorist cell kidnapped her. I sent agents over to Alex's house and we found agent Carson dead in the kitchen with a knife in his back, along with a ransom note, they took Jack and wanted Alex to give them the disk in order to get her back."

Blunt's mouth went dry and his heartbeat quickened, "Jack?"

"His guardian."

Blunt could feel his heart sinking, something it hadn't done for quite a long time. He had just had one of his best agent's killed for no reason. What made it all worse was that the agent was a fourteen year old boy.

"Tulip," he said softly, "He's already dead."

He could hear a sharp intake of breath on the other side, "Come into the office as soon as you get back."

A click signaled the end of the call and Blunt slipped the phone into his jacket pocket. Climbing into the helicopter he thought of what everyone back at MI6 would say. He remembered the incident with Cray; he had barely clung to his position then; what would happen now? There was almost no chance Blunt's career could weather this blow. With a sad sigh Blunt felt the helicopter rise into the air.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away a woman with matted red hair sat in a cold metal chair with her hands bound and a scarf covering her tear filled eyes. Every muscle in her body trembled with fear. How could Alex have ever gotten involved with MI6? That was who it all came back to, MI6. If it wasn't for them Jack wouldn't be sitting here, she would be at home, safely in bed.

A man with a gun in his hand stood over her. His eyes were cold and ruthless, but his lips were curled into a slight smile. Killing did that to him. With every new victim he grew happier, more elated. Maybe it was the rush that came from snatching another's life away, he didn't know, much less care. All that mattered was that he kept doing it. This woman was just another one of his countless victims. He knew her name and why she was here, but that didn't matter to him.

He leaned over her, pressing the gun to her heart, whispering in her ear, "We were never going to let you go." A shot rang out in the concrete cell.

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There it is! I hope you like it. I know it is really sad, that was the point. It was just something that came to me, from where I don't know. I hope you like it and if you do or if you don't REVIEW. It doesn't take that much time and it makes me smile!

-Marissa

Read and REVIEW my other story, Secrets Kept!


	2. No One Could Help

Due to popular demand I am writing another chapter to this story. It was originally meant to be a one-shot, but then I realized that there were a good deal of unanswered questions, and the story didn't really make sense. Please note that this is definitely the last chapter, no matter how many problems you guys have with this story, there will not be another chapter.

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Alan blunt stared dazed out of his own office window. A cold cup of black coffee sat untouched on his desk. The same sentence kept running through his mind, "I was so sure…" How could he have been that idiotic as to do that before being 100 sure? How could he have killed one of his best agents?

A soft rapping on his door brought him back into reality. "Come in," his voice shook ever so slightly.

Mrs. Jones stepped quietly toward him on the plush carpet, "Alan," she put a hand on his shoulder, "you have a meeting in forty five minutes with the Prime Minister."

"Okay," his voice shook almost as much as he did as he did. This was it, the end of his career.

"You had every reason to believe that Alex was guilty of treason, so don't beat yourself up about it so much."

"What are you doing Tulip? You know as well as I do that my career is down the toilet!" all of his sadness was anger now, and he was swinging toward the point of rage.

"Alan, listen to me!"

"What!"

Mrs. Jones sighed, "The Prime Minister does not yet know what happened, but I can guarantee he will before your meeting. I cannot think he will be very happy that three people were slaughtered unmercifully, but that is out of your hands now."

"Three lives," it was as if a vacuum was sucking all of the air out of his lungs.

Mrs. Jones slowly sank into the chair on the opposite side of Blunt's desk, "Yes, three."

"Who were the other people?" he almost didn't want to know.

"I assume you remember Jack, Alex's guardian?"

Blunt almost smiled at this, for she had been the only reason they had been able to convince Alex to join MI6, "Yes I remember."

"The only reason he stole the disk was to trade it for Jack's safe return, she had been kidnapped," Tulip told him in the kindest voice she could muster. Even as she said this a thought floated through her brain 'you knew that full well, Alan, Alex told you before you slaughtered him.

"Oh, and how do we know she is dead?"

"We can only assume…"

Alan turned his chair toward the window, the sun was setting and he couldn't help but notice the blood red streaked across the sky. Just like the blood that poured in gallons out of Alex's head…. Caught up in his gazing he didn't notice Mrs. Jones slowly withdraw something from her small handbag.

"Who was the third person that died today?" his voice was uncaring and distracted.

"Alan," he slowly turned his chair around to face her. The sight that met his eyes made his throat tighten and his blood race through his veins. Mrs. Jones sat calm, cool, and completely collected all while pointing a gun at his head.

"Turn around," she commanded. He did as he was told. "You were right, you are a horrible man. You shot that innocent boy for _nothing_," she mocked him in a sickly sweet, childish voice.

"Horrible man," he scoffed, "I'm not the one holding the gun pointed at someone's head. Some would argue that you, not I, are the horrible person."

"Some would…" she sounded almost sad, but she did not lower the gun a centimeter. Slowly she rose out of the chair and went to stand behind her boss. "Look down, as though you are reading a paper."

His head bowed in defeat he could feel Tulip's harried breath on his neck. Without further ado, she shot him, point blank in the back of the skull. In what seemed to be slow motion his head fell to his desk, on top of the document he had been pretending to read a moment before his death.

Searching for the latch to open the window of Blunt's office she was relieved when her white gloved fingers felt a small latch to pop the window open. As carefully as she could she brought the gun outside the window and with a hard whack the window shattered, piece after piece raining down on Alan Blunt's lifeless corpse. The glass was not bulletproof.

Two weeks ago there had been an "accidental" fire in the executive wing of MI6, supposedly originating from a faulty microwave, and everyone had been moved to the floor bellow, normally empty. When the building had been constructed years ago the government refused to splurge to get bulletproof glass for the entire building with the exception of the executive offices. As the years went by, the only floor whose windows had not been replaced was the one they were on now. This was coincidentally the floor Mrs. Jones had decided would house the executive officers of MI6 while to floor above was being repaired. She explained this by saying it was for "reasons of convenience".

Tulip smiled for the first time in years, her plan had gone perfectly, she had even managed to dispose of Alex, something she had not been sure would go well. The money would be in her account within an hour and within two she would be on her way to a beach front house she had recently acquired in Thailand. Everything would be perfect.

Outside the door a team of four SAS men stood listening for movement. One was sitting on a folding chair with a laptop on his lap. He could see everything the woman inside was doing. He watched as the woman walked nearer to the window and he tensed. What was she doing? If she jumped there would be hell to pay, the government needed her for questioning.

He let out a relieved sigh, she was looking toward the rooftop of the building across the narrow street below. Mrs. Jones chucked the gun with all of her strength across the street as Fox watched. It landed perfectly.

Sadly Fox made a gesture to Wolf, who had been silent for the past two hours. Wolf violently kicked the door it, it fell to the ground with a soft thud, masked by the high pitched screams of the head of operations at MI6. "What the hell! Blunt, he just…someone shot him!"

"Shut up!" Wolf sneered. "We saw the entire damn thing! You shot him, not some crazed lunatic. Well actually…"

The look on Mrs. Jones face slipped from horror at Blunt's "murder" to fear and panic extraordinarily quickly. "W-wh-what do you mean?"

"There is a camera in the room you bitch!" Her eyes widened and eyes scanned the room for an escape route. She couldn't find one. With a gulp and a tragic look in her eyes she fell backward out the window before Wolf, Eagle, or Snake could grab her.

Eagle and fox swore loudly, but Wolf was silent. Slowly he walked over the blood stained carpet littered with shards of broken glass and looked down out the window. A small congregation had already gathered around Tulip Jones's corpse. Quietly, to himself he whispered, "I still cannot believe she tricked Blunt into making _me_ kill Alex Rider." A silent tear slid slowly down his weathered face and dripped down into a pool of Alan Blunt's blood.

The following day the press went wild. **TWO** MI6 executives dead! No one could help the fact that Mrs. Jones had her MI6 ID badge in her pocket and a slew of classified documents in her bag. No one could help the fact that a common thief grabbed her bag and unwittingly exposed one of the biggest scandals the United Kingdom government had ever had. No one could help the fact that the Prime Minister, the same one that had no idea whatsoever about Alex Rider, was thrown out of office for supposedly allowing a child to be put in danger and blackmailing him. But most of all, no one could help that Alex Rider was dead, caught up in a world that really should have, all along, been left to adults….

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You have no idea how sad that last paragraph was to write. I know there are many still unanswered questions, but I will leave those to your imagination. This is where the story ends (after all, even if I wanted to continue, what characters would I have to write about???)

-Marissa


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